Our kOscars 2009 emcee, LaughingPlanet, originated this idea to have some fun honoring diarists, commenters and frontpagers. LP started out covering all the award categories, but it became such a huge endeavor because we are all so talented here! So, I offered to help him. Now, LP is covering nominations for diarists and different diary categories, like Diary of the Year.
I'm covering the awards for diary series and commenters. My first diary, Daily kOscars: Commenters & Series, announced the starting point for a list of categories for awards to diary series and commenters and asked for suggestions to refine our categories. Thanks to some constructive comments and ideas, this diary sets out the revised list of categories for awards.
However, I just found out that I will need to post a diary poll for each of the now 14 categories. Anyone interested in helping? Or, perhaps we could merge some of these categories?
A few words about how categories are selected. To be fair to everyone and not end up with an award category where there is one or two nominees only, while other award categories have 8 or 10 nominees, the categories are sometimes broad. Category names are not an exact science and there may be distinctions among the nominees in any category. Things are a little confusing now because we are posting nominations before the categories are finalized. But, hopefully, after the nomination process is completed next week, we will have sufficient numbers of nominees in each category so that no category has an inherent advantage or disadvantage from the number of nominees.
kOscar Categories for Diary Series
In order to create categories for diary series, I reviewed the list of diary series at dkosopedia.
As I looked at each series, I tried to think of one subject that generally encompassed the series, such as political, community or educational. So, each of the categories listed below is based on substantive content with one exception. The category of Frontpage Series is based on the sole criterion that it is a series maintained by the FP. The reason for this exception is that we have excellent FP series that I think our community would like to recognize in this fun award endeavor, but to have them compete with diaries might not be fair given that FP series might be more well-known than some diary series.
After I created a list of subject categories, I did an informal testing of fairness by reviewing whether each category had a similar number of putative nominees. That is, if one category had only 2 nominees possible while another category had 25 nominees possible, then the first award category had an advantage. My very unscientific review of the diary series suggested to me that none of the categories were feast or famine in terms of possible nominees.
This is a revised list of categories based upon comments and suggestions in my first diary on nomination categories: Daily kOscars: Commenters & Series. It also includes a list of the nominations made thus far, but next week I will post a couple diaries to take nominations.
The Revised Diary Series Categories
- Community Forum:
Black Kos, WGLB Presents, Indians 101
- DK Community Service (These are community diaries that benefit DK):
Diary Rescue, Jotter's High Impact Diaries, Top Comments
- World Community Service (These are community diaries that benefit DK and/or people in the U.S. or around the world):
Netroots for the Troops, IGTNT
- Nonpolitical:
Friday Night at the Movies, Saturday Night Uforia, Grieving Room
- Environmental:
DK GreenRoots, EcoJustice, Saturday Morning Garden Blog, Meatless Mondays, Haole from Hawaii, Muskegon Critic's Asian Carp, Dawn Chorus Birdblog
- FrontPage:
Green Diary Rescue, States Wrapups, Open Thread, Sunday Talk, Cheers and Jeers
- Political or News:
MN Senate Recount, Overnight News Digest, Capitol Hill Open Thread, Morning Feature, Tara the Antisocial Social Worker's Goddess
- Educational:
BookFlurries, Saturday Home Repair, Chronic Tonic, Purple Priestess' The Mad Logophile
- History:
History for Kossacks, KAMuston's History Series, LoE's New Deal Series, dsteffen's How regulation came to be
The Revised Commenter Categories
There has been some discussion about whether to include awards for commenters. Daily Kos has 3 primary contributors: Diarists, commenters, and frontpagers. Each contributor has equal value to our community. Diarists and frontpagers will be recognized in both the diary nominations and diary series nominations. Some commenters may not write diaries frequently, and some don't write any diaries, but their contribution to our community is as important as diarists and frontpagers. In fact, how many would post diaries here if there were no ability for comments?
These are the revised commenter categories that also include a list of the nominations made thus far, but next week I will post a couple diaries to take nominations. The category of Snark/Humorist has been changed to two categories of original and adapted work. The work itself may be words, graphics, pictures or other interpretative medium:
- Political:
DallasDoc, Gooserock
- Original Snark/Artwork:
nonnie9999, trix, rserven, Predictor, EddieC
- Adapted Snark/Artwork:
JekyllnHyde, Rimjob, Scarce, BlueJessamine
- Action Faction:
kath25, Elise, Jill Richardson
- Comment of the Year:
No nominations yet.
If we can get the categories finalized tonight, then next week I will post a couple diaries to take nominations to fill in these categories.